1 Samuel 3

Intro:

We take many things for granted in life.

We often do not appreciate the goodness of these things until we lose them—good health, caring parents, freedom, friendships …

The list could be extended.

So long as such things are part of normal life for us, we give little thought to their importance.

It is also true that those who have never known some of these good things in their experience may not really know how good they are.

One good that is taken for granted by some, and unknown to others, is the word of God.

The Old Testament prophet Amos issued a terrible threat to the people of Israel in the eighth century b.c.

Amos 8:11–12 ESV

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.

It is difficult for us to sense the horror of Amos’s warning because we do not readily appreciate, on the one hand, the brilliant goodness of the word of God and, on the other, our profound dependence on God’s word.

This may be because we have come to take the word of the Lord for granted or because we have never known its goodness.

As we return to the days of young Samuel at Shiloh, we learn that those days were somewhat like the days that Amos, a couple of centuries later, would proclaim were about to come again to Israel.

These were days when “the word of the Lord was rare.”

The reason for this famine of the word of the Lord has been presented in the previous chapter.

The priests at Shiloh, in particular Eli’s sons, “did not know the Lord” and behaved with an outrageous contempt for both God and the people

Read 1 Samuel 3:1-5

I. Word of Lord was Rare vs. 1

This is the fifth time we have heard a brief statement about Samuel and his activities at Shiloh.

These statements have been five bright spots in the otherwise dark and gloomy account of the goings on at Shiloh

In the very setting of the degeneracy of Hophni and Phinehas and the failing competence of Eli, Samuel progressed from being the lad who served the Lord under the direct supervision of Eli “the priest”.

to taking on the priestly garment himself in 1 Samuel 2:18,

to personal growth “with the Lord” (literal translation) in 1 Samuel 2:21,

to a youth in good standing with God and the people in 1 Samuel 2:26,

to the one we will now see at Shiloh serving the Lord, still “under Eli,” but with Eli no longer called “the priest”

The word was rare and there was no vision

Without a vision the people perish

When Disciples go without the word of God they starve their souls

It stunts their spiritual growth and clouds their judgment

Israel was a nation doing what was right in their own eyes

God would punish them by sending invaders, but would then raise up a judge

He is now raising up the final judge

Chapter starts with saying the Word of the Lord was rare and ends with a recognized prophet

Samuel was less a judge like Moses and more a prophet like Elijah

He was a young boy and need to learn to hear the Voice of the Lord

II. God Speaks to Samuel vs. 2-9

Eli is getting old

His eyesight is growing dim

This is part of growing old but the author correlates this with the lack of vision

Eli’s physical condition was a reflection of the spiritual reality.

He could not see the light of day, nor could he “see” the word of the Lord. His darkness was deep

He was lying down

He obviously had his own place in the temple

lying down, is part of a picture that is being built up of a man too old to do much at all.

All we have seen him do in the whole story so far is sit, speak, hear, and now lie down

Eli was lying down “in his own place.”

There is nothing wrong with that, of course.

But “in his own place” will make quite a contrast to the place we are about to see young Samuel

We ought to sense the growing crisis. Israel had always needed a mediator to receive God’s word, to offer sacrifice for their sins, and to represent them before God

Here we see Israel’s mediator as feeble and frail.

What will happen when Eli is gone?

vs. 3 Lamp not gone out

On the one hand, this was the lamp that burned “from evening to morning” in the tabernacle

If it “had not yet gone out,” it was still nighttime.

On the other hand, in the darkness represented by God’s silence and Eli’s blindness, the news that God’s lamp “had not yet gone out” suggests that God had not yet abandoned his people. There was still hope.

Young Samuel lying down “in the temple of the Lord.”

The temple of the Lord (that is, of course, the tabernacle) represented God’s dwelling among his people.

This was where one would expect the word of the Lord to be given, the sacrifices to be offered, and the priest to represent Israel before the Lord.

The decline of Eli and the corruption of his sons threatened these necessary expressions of Israel’s relationship with God.

But the lamp of God had not yet gone out: young Samuel was there, in the temple of the Lord.

vs. 4-7 Unrecognized Word

The Lord Called Samuel

It is clear that on this occasion the word of the Lord came, to Samuel at least, in an audible voice.

If God called Samuel in an audible voice, Samuel’s reaction is not at all surprising: “… and he said, ‘Here I am!’ and ran to Eli and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me’

Notice his energetic responsiveness. It was immediate and fast. He ran to Eli

Eli’s affectionate way of speaking to Samuel as “my son” is poignant.

His actual sons had defied him and brought God’s condemnation

Neither Samuel nor Eli yet understood what was happening

vs. 7a Samuel did not yet know the Lord

This is a strange thing to say.

After all, have we not been told that Samuel was ministering to the Lord, that he was growing with the Lord, that he enjoyed the favor of the Lord?

What does it mean, “Samuel did not yet know the Lord”?

The key here is the word yet

Hophni & Phineas did not know the Lord because they had rejected knowledge of God by their contempt for God’s Law.

Samuel did not yet know the Lord because “… the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him”

In the case of Hophni and Phinehas, we see that it is not possible to know God at the same time as defying him.

You cannot know God and live in disobedience to God.

On the other hand, in the case of Samuel we see that it is only possible to know God when God acts to make himself known

vs. 8-9

Old Eli realized that something was happening that had not happened at Shiloh for a very long time.

His sight had grown dim, but he was not yet completely blind.

He instructs Samuel on how to respond when the Lord speaks the next time

Speak Lord, for your servant hears

III. The Lord Visits vs. 10-14

This time there seems to be more than the voice. The Lord “came and stood.”

The Lord was present, this was no dream on Samuel’s part

It has taken half the chapter for the word of the Lord to be heard.

But at last there was a servant at Shiloh who was hearing.

When God speaks, it is not some kind of mystical experience, in which it is the experience of hearing that matters.

When God speaks, what matters is what God says.

On the occasion what God has to say was terrible

vs. 11 Ears will tingle

This phrase happens a couple of times in the OT

God was about to do something “in Israel” (therefore an event of national significance) that would have that effect on the ears of everyone who heard it!

vs. 12-13 God will be True

The simple but terrible news was that God would do what he had said he would do.

On one of the rare occasions that the word of the Lord had been spoken in those days, it was by the man of God who came to Eli

The word of the Lord to Samuel was now simply that it was about to happen.

The word “punish” in verse 13 is often translated “judge.”

Over the previous couple of hundred years God had raised up “judges” who had delivered Israel from enemies and called Israel to obedient living

The judgment of God against human wickedness is always a terrible thing to contemplate.

It is hardly possible for us, embroiled as we are in the sinfulness of humanity, to see clearly the rightness of God’s ways.

It is very important for us to take care here and humbly listen to the word of God, not passing judgment on it, but allowing it to illumine our minds.

The accusation in verse 13 may therefore sound harsh to us: “he did not restrain” his sons. Well, we might say, it was not for want of trying!

The trouble with all this is that Eli is not being judged by us.

It is the Lord who said that his sons were blaspheming and that he did not do what he should have done.

It is not for us then to sit in judgment over the Lord. He is the God of knowledge, by whom deeds are weighed

The worst of the rotten things that the sons of Eli did was to treat with contempt the very provision God had made for the forgiveness of sins (see 1 Samuel 2:17, 29).

This had frightful consequences: “Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever” (v. 14).

Do you understand the horror of those words?

If the gracious provision God has made for the forgiveness of sins is spurned, scorned, disdained, despised, there is nothing left but the fearful prospect of judgment.

IV. Eli’s Response vs. 15-21

Naturally, Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision

He had no desire to share it

However, as Samuel might have expected, Eli was not likely to leave the matter there

Eli seemed to recognize the difficulty.

His words to Samuel were both kind (“Samuel, my son”) and very firm.

In the strongest possible terms he insisted that Samuel tell him all that the Lord had said.

Eli’s response was rather more than matter-of-fact: “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him”

Things could not be the same again in Shiloh, nor in fact in Israel.

Samuel now knew the Lord, for the word of the Lord had now been revealed to him.

Samuel was “established” (the word suggests trustworthiness, reliability) as the Lord’s prophet because his words did not fail.

The God who had cared about childless Hannah cared about Israel in her time of leadership crisis.

The word of the Lord would now come to Israel by the prophet he had called. God was no longer silent.

Let us make two observations as we conclude our consideration of 1 Samuel 3.

The first is about the developments we are seeing in the Israel of Samuel’s day. The second is about what is happening in our day.

Remember the severe crisis in Israel, which I have been describing as a crisis of leadership.

In response to that crisis, what did God do?

Did he raise up a man with what we would call leadership gifts? Did he set up a new organizational structure for the nation?

No. He sent his word, and he provided for his word to come to all Israel.

Samuel held no recognized office.

God made him a prophet, whose role was to speak God’s words.

God’s response to Israel’s leadership crisis was the provision of his word.